TheTakenWorld
Do I plan my trips detailed? No. Is it bad? No. See here why!
I appreciate travelling with little planning in advance. Don’t we plan all year long? Project plans, calendar, daily work and private life? So why plan also the free time? Let it happen!
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🇩🇪Soest
    • Another day in Serbia

      September 1, 2022 in Serbia ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

      The hotel in Belgrade was really nice, not cheap but definitely worth it. Very nice and clean and friendly staff. It was raining though and hence I did not have the chance to enjoy Belgrade. Ordered some food from Wolt and next morning went to the gym for a quick run. Expecting that the bad day of EV chargers was gone.
      Before getting on the road some one wanted to drive an EV. Super ok for me, because the entrance and exit of the underground parking of the hotel was - lets say - spectacular. See the video.

      Assuming that the journey would go smooth from now on was a false expectation.
      After fighting for an hour with another HPC Charger (paid) at OMV, and a nice chat with a UK family.. Well they were super cool. Couple, Baby, Dog and did a two months trip thru Europe including Turkey, Balkans and others with a BMW iX3. Ah yea, fighting with the charger, called the hotline, called Audi. Nobody could help. Found another CCS 50 kWh charger on the go which would bring me to the border of Serbia to Skopje, but then? Met Bulgarians at the charger and talked a bit. Anyways, I needed to find another charger prior crossing the boarder as I expected to have no chargers in Skopje (North Macedonia).

      Oh and there was this Armageddon rain, see video.

      So luckily there is this awesome hotel in the middle of nowhere, probably they let me charge if I eat at their restaurant or pay the electricity. I assumed, calling them this wouldn’t be the fact. I was really pissed, searched for other opportunities, but nothing. Well, booked and drove in. The hotel was huge. Very high standard and clean. Friendly staff. Food nice. And.. a perfect Gym. So, second run that day :)
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    • From here we charge slow

      August 31, 2022 in Serbia ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

      You remember the last charging stop at Shell in Croatia? That was pretty much the last HPC (High Performance Charger) from there on I was happy to get CCS 50 kWh if at all.
      Well, the route is the journey, right. Have simple lunch while charging and getting some unfiltered sun drive the car with a spectacular range of almost 400 km. Insane, at home, I can only reach 250 km max on the highway. With the empty streets and average speed of about 115 km/h more range is possible.
      Really frustrating was though the situation in Serbia with the free HPC charger on the mount routes. Literally non of them was working for me and even the paid ones did not work, that resulted in unplanned hotel stays which offer AC (11 kWh) chargers which is fast enough to charge full over night. Though, very very stressful when you run out of range and no chargers are in reach. Tesla Chargers are not available for non Tesla cars in Serbia, so I took remaining necessary range from a AC charger at Ikea. That charging time using for calling all hotels in Belgrade which listed with EV Chargers at Booking.com. Luckily I did call them, as some of them did not offer even though listed.
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    • Off to the Balkan

      August 31, 2022 in Austria ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

      hm, did I mention, that EV driving is a quiet social thing? Talked with a Tesla driver for a while at a charging park close to Graz. Never talked with an Austrian person before.

      Did not sleep well, that Booking.com apartment was not too bad, though the smell in the bath room was disgusting and that brought me to the road earlier than planned.

      Oh talking about the apartment, the keys I had to get from a locker which was located at a bicycle stand and to get the key, I had to enter a number code. The car I had to park in an underground parking which was located across the street. CheckIn took a while and all those instruction came via WhatsApp, did you ever had Siri reading a WhatsApp message with only Pictures and videos. Don’t it drives you crazy.

      After leaving the keys in a mailbox, I went for a quick charge in Graz, had a petrol station, prepared my Match Tea with Hot Water from the friendly guy from the petrol station and went on the road and let it roll.

      Next steps at lunch time was already Croatia.
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    • And I am on the road

      August 30, 2022 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

      After getting up so early last night, I decided to kick it off easily this that morning. Tried to sleep a bit longer, went for a run on the treadmill and .. most importantly took care of the car. Brought it to my favourite car cleaners at MyZeil Parking. Mean while, went for a delicious plant based lunch. The first couple of hundred kilometres went quit smooth (post-writing this, I feel good to say that) only issue is that the Audi MMI kept on rebooting a dozen times. Thought because of the heat, tried to call Audi and guess what they still seem to have my number blocked / or forward it by default to unwilling and unqualified personal. Anyways, didn’t got them and found out later, that the reason is probably because of a heavy route I have calculated.
      So.. nice things, when being on the highway I remembered that Audi has this Audi Charging Hub located in Nürnberg and I always wanted to visit this. Since, Nürnberg was on my route and charging is always a good idea, I added this is as a stop over. Quiet impressive building and nice decorated, clean and some selected drinks to buy. That’s it then :)

      While passing thru Bavaria I did eventually another stop at a fast charger where i got to talk to a guy who realised that I am from far-far-away and that far-far-away is the area where Warsteiner Beer is produced. I told him that most people avoid Warsteiner in my area.
      So.. Austria, you really have to get this old school sticker for the Maut. Slovenia is way advanced here. Go to the petrol station, buy a ticket and with that your numbers are registered and your car is identified by that.
      Also in Austria you have the chance to get in contact with locals when you are on a drive thru - when you stop over at a charger.

      My plan originally was to head to Slovenia and find a nice place to stay, due to the delayed start, ended up in Graz where I got a kind off a Airbnb room to stay. Well, friendly people, but from that time on I prefer hotels.
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    • We call it FrExit

      August 29, 2022 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

      All this trip starts with a good bye, well thinking about it, actually every trip starts with a good bye. But this one was different.
      Let me start at the beginning first, leaving Ambra 🐶
      When arrived at the office I had this very last good morning with my team, though just some of them in house as the team distributed around the world and some on PTO that was the first time saying good morning for the last time in this constellation.
      Leaving the company feels wrong, as you actually break up with people you don’t want to break up with.
      Hard.
      Now after a typical day with end to end meetings we all together - and some more - went to a Peru restaurant and spent this first last evening all together and so many joined.
      And all the nice things they gave me and all the nice words or gestures.
      Touched.
      Missing all!
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